The Wild Girl (35 page)

‘Talking about names, I know a tale you’ll like,’ Dortchen cried. ‘If only I can remember it. It’s about a girl who the king thinks can spin straw into gold, so he marries her, hoping for wealth and power. But it was all a lie of her father’s, and if the king finds out he’ll kill her.’

Wilhelm drew a fresh piece of paper towards him. ‘Tell it to me.’

Dortchen told him eagerly, her eyes fixed on his face. The others in the quiet room seemed to fade away into the shadows, as if she and Wilhelm were alone in the circle of firelight, his quill recording her every word, his eyes continually rising to meet hers, to gaze at her face, her mouth, before looking away again as he hurried to catch up with the story. Dortchen found it hard to breathe – her stays felt too tight upon her ribs, her skin hot and flushed from the fire, her blood fizzing with some indescribable emotion. Joy and fear and longing, and something strange and eager and quick.

When she had finished the tale, with its grotesque villain and his secret name, there was silence for a long moment. Dortchen and Wilhelm sat smiling at each other, oblivious to anyone else.

‘Thank you – it’s a marvellous story,’ Wilhelm said, his voice low and gruff. ‘You tell it so beautifully. I can never hope to capture it half as well.’

Dortchen’s flush deepened till she felt her whole body was on fire.

‘I have another tale for you, if you like,’ Old Marie said, breaking the spell.

Dortchen sat back, embarrassed, aware of everyone’s curious eyes on her face. Wilhelm turned to Old Marie politely. ‘Of course, that would be wonderful.’

‘It’s about a father who cuts off his daughter’s hands,’ Old Marie said. She was sitting forward in her chair, her hands tense and still upon her sewing.

‘I don’t think I’ve heard that one before,’ Dortchen exclaimed.

Old Marie regarded her with sombre eyes. ‘It’s not a tale for children.’

‘Jakob, you may need to write this one down,’ Wilhelm said, shaking his ink-stained fingers. ‘My hand is aching.’

Jakob came to sit at the table, taking up a fresh quill and sheaf of paper. Wilhelm sat on the hearthrug, so close to Dortchen that she could have reached out and run her fingers through his crisp, dark curls. She was very conscious of his warm body, leaning so close to her knee, and his pale, long-fingered hand, hanging down. If he had wanted to, he could have leant forward and cupped her calf through the thin material of her dress. The idea of it made her stomach twist and her loins clench.

Old Marie’s story was about a poor miller who promised the Devil his daughter in return for wealth. When she proved too good for the Devil to take, he chopped off her hands and drove her out into the world.

As Old Marie told the story, Dortchen felt the blood drain from her face till she was afraid she might faint. She sat back in her chair, turning her cheek against the hard wood, her knees twisting away from where Wilhelm sat. She was conscious of his troubled gaze but would not meet his eyes. She could not have explained why Old Marie’s story horrified her so much. Surely it was just a story?

No story was just a story, though. It was a suitcase stuffed with secrets.

Old Marie spoke on steadily. In her tale, the girl without hands sought refuge in a king’s walled garden, and he took pity on her beauty and helplessness and married her. A pair of silver hands was forged for her. The king’s mother was horrified by his choice, however, and plotted to discredit the handless maiden. She had to flee back into the forest, taking her young son with her. There she was helped by a mysterious old man, who told her to wrap her maimed arms about a tree. The girl did as she was told, and her hands magically grew back.

Dortchen heard the front door open. She started up, filled with terror. Old Marie darted a look at the sitting-room door, then stared at Wilhelm, her voice rising and quickening as she hurried to finish her tale. Wilhelm stared back at her, looking tense.

Frau Wild sat up too, her hand groping for her drops. ‘Perhaps … another day?’ she suggested.

Old Marie paid her no heed. ‘The king, meanwhile, had been searching for his poor, maimed wife all through the vast, dark forest. He found his
queen and his son by the spring, but could not believe the beautiful woman with the flawless white hands could be his wife. She showed him the silver-forged hands as proof, and he embraced her joyfully, crying, “Now a heavy stone has fallen from my heart.”’

Jakob wrote swiftly, the scratch and dip of his quill drowned out by the stamp of feet on the steps, the sound of Mia’s high voice and the low growl as her father replied.

‘And so she was healed, and all was forgiven and forgotten, and the king and his queen celebrated a second wedding feast, for now at last they were equals,’ Old Marie said rapidly. Jakob wrote the last few words, laying down his quill just as the door to the sitting room opened and Herr Wild stepped in.

He looked around the shadowy, firelit room with lowering brows. Wilhelm scrambled to his feet, stepping away from Dortchen’s chair. Jakob rose more slowly, bowing his head in greeting, while Lotte jumped up, looking scared. Old Marie kept placidly sewing, her white-capped head bent over her hands.

‘Oh, you’re home,’ Frau Wild said, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. ‘Did you have a pleasant evening? Look, we’ve had company too. So kind. Enquiring after my health.’

‘Is that so?’ Herr Wild replied unpleasantly. ‘How very officious. You do all look cosy. We, however, are chilled to the bone. Marie, do you think you could bestir yourself to warm us some soup?’

‘Of course, sir,’ she answered, rising to her feet.

Röse opened the door and stumbled in, windswept and woebegone. ‘Mother?’ she said. ‘Mother, are you here?’ Her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose pink at the tip.

‘Of course, my little love,’ Frau Wild said, sitting quite upright. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

Röse went in a rush across to her mother’s couch, collapsing in a welter of skirts beside it. A sob broke from her.

‘Why, nothing at all is the matter,’ Herr Wild said heartily. ‘She is to be congratulated. Our little Röse is to be married.’

CLAMOUR OF BELLS

March 1811

On 20th March 1811, Napoléon Bonaparte’s son was born in Paris. As soon as the news reached Cassel, a clamour of bells rang all through the town, continuing on and on all afternoon.

‘I wish they would shut up,’ Mia said crossly. ‘It’s giving me such a headache.’

‘The Ogre will never be defeated now, will he?’ Dortchen said. ‘It’s a dynasty. Napoléon and his descendants will rule us forever.’

Both girls were leaning on pitchforks in the herb garden, their hands muddy, their aprons smeared with dirt. A barrow of compost steamed nearby. With Rudolf gone to Berlin, the hard work of digging and cleaning out the sty and the stables was now done by his sisters, on top of all the extra work in the house and stillroom.

‘I suppose we must just get used to it,’ Mia said. ‘After all, it’s been five years now.’

‘I’ll never get used to it,’ Dortchen said. ‘Never.’

‘We should be practising our French,’ Mia said. ‘I heard they plan to outlaw German altogether. Besides, Father needs us in the shop. He’s too old a dog to learn new tricks.’

Dortchen said nothing. She was being stupid with her French on purpose, so her father would not call her to help him in the shop. That only
made him angry and impatient with her, though, and he humiliated her by calling her in anyway and watching as she did her best to stutter through.

That night there was a ball at Napoléonshöhe. Many girls from the town were invited. If Rudolf had been home, he would have got tickets for his sisters. But Rudolf was not home. Lotte, who had just turned eighteen, was to go with her brother and the Hassenpflug family. Dortchen tried not to mind. It was her eighteenth birthday in three days, and while all the girls of the town dressed in their best and waltzed the night away, she had to stay at home, peeling turnips and feeding the pig.

Frau Wild was unwell again and kept to her bed, and so Herr Wild supped with his three youngest daughters, who sat in a row at the long, dark table, their heads bowed over their meagre meal.

‘Soon you’ll be sitting at the head of your own table,’ he said to Röse, who bent her face closer to her plate to hide the tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ he cried. ‘You’d think you would be glad at the prospect of marrying a well-established gentleman with his own business. But no, all I get is this weeping and whining. And I thought you the good, obedient child.’

Röse got up and ran from the room. Herr Wild turned his frown on his other daughters and poured himself another deep glass of quince brandy. By the time Mia and Dortchen were permitted to rise and clear the table, most of the bottle had gone.

As Mia and Dortchen washed up in the scullery, the younger sister turned to the elder sister and said, in a low, scared voice, ‘He’s really old, Dortchen. Older even than Father.’

‘The man Röse is to marry?’

‘Yes. He’s old and fat and he smells of beer. And he didn’t talk to Röse at all. He just asked Father if she was good and obedient, then said it was a shame she was so scrawny.’

Dortchen wiped the plate again and again, even though it shone with cleanliness.

‘If it was me, I’d run away,’ Mia said.

‘Where?’ Dortchen said. ‘Where would you go?’

Mia shrugged and looked miserable.

‘Where could you go?’ Dortchen said in a low voice.

There was nowhere.

Dortchen and Mia put on their nightgowns and tiptoed through the cold, dark corridors to their rooms, Dortchen carrying Röse’s flannel-wrapped bed-warmer in one hand and her own in the other. Röse was lying face-down and fully dressed on her bed. ‘Get changed and hop into bed,’ Dortchen said, her pity making it hard for her to speak. ‘I’ll warm your bed for you.’

Röse sat up and drearily began to undress, as Dortchen slid the pan full of hot coals between the icy sheets.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Dortchen said, knowing her words were no comfort.

Röse shrugged. ‘We must do as Father tells us. Doesn’t the Bible say so?’ She pulled on her nightgown and climbed into bed, huddling into a ball, her back to Dortchen.

Dortchen stood, wanting to say more, wondering if she should pat her sister’s shoulder or try to embrace her. Röse had never liked being touched, though. After a moment, she went out and climbed the steep steps to her own room.

Even with her feet on the hot bed-warmer and the eiderdown wrapped around her, Dortchen could not get warm. She sat up, wrapped her shawl about her and leant her head on her knees. She stared across at the dark windows of the Grimms’ apartment. Would Wilhelm dance? she wondered. Would he dance with Marie Hassenpflug? Was she smiling up at him now, those glossy, dark ringlets hanging across her smooth shoulders? Was she twirling in his arms, his hand on her slim waist? The very thought of it was agony.

The church bells were striking the half-hour after midnight when lights flowered in the dark Grimm house. Pressing her forehead against the glass, Dortchen could see the revellers going inside, cloaked against the night chill. She heard distant laughter and the sound of the front door shutting. She followed the path of the lantern through the house, as first one window warmed into life and then another. She saw candlelight flicker up
in Wilhelm and Jakob’s bedroom, towards the front of the house, and then in Lotte’s window, in the bedroom directly opposite. Dortchen watched, hoping her friend would open the curtain and look out, but the curtains hung motionless. After a few moments, the candle was blown out and darkness closed in again.

Dortchen slid down, pushing the bed-warmer down so it could warm the arctic regions at the foot of the bed. She began to drift towards sleep. Darkness swallowed her.

Sometime later – she did not know how long – something startled her. A faint cry, a flicker of light at the edge of her eye, some sixth sense that brought her upright, her pulse jumping.

In the Grimm house opposite, a light was moving quickly, erratically, from one window to another, as if someone was running with a candle in hand. More windows glared with light. Dortchen thought she could hear shouting, banging, crashing. She sat and watched, tense and anxious, till the sky began to fade to grey and the orange eyes of the windows opposite no longer seemed quite so ominous. Every sinew and nerve in her body wanted to run across the alleyway and see what was wrong, but she did not dare.

HELTER-SKELTER